The 2nd Annual Hartford Open at the Bradley
International Airport Sheraton attracted nearly 130 players from a dozen states
and Canada over the weekend of April 9-10. Although two dozen hopefuls,
including four powerful GMs and three IMs, slugged it out in the Open Section,
it was Avery Chen of Connecticut, with a pre-tournament rating of 1899, who
walked away with the most wins and the biggest payday, and nearly 90 new rating
points, by sweeping the separate, 46-player, under-2010 section with a perfect
5-0 score.

To be fair, of course, when the top four players in an open
section average 2593, it's going to be unlikely to find a perfect score
standing at the end of the day. Despite, or perhaps because of, the hard-fought
quality of the games, four tied for first-GM Sergey Kudrin (Conn.), GM
Alexander Ivanov (Mass.), GM Mikhail Kekelidze (N.Y.), and IM Robert Hungaski
(Conn.), all scored four points. The former three gave up two draws to the grandmaster-pack,
while Hungaski scored four wins, losing only to Kudrin in round two.

GM Sergey Kudrin, Photo Al Lawrence

The last-round saw a cliff-hanger on board two. The final
game to finish save one saw Kudrin maneuver on into the second time control to
win as Black against young FM Daniel Rozovsky(Conn.). Rozovsky joined
Christopher Gu (R.I.), Sylvester Smarty (Ohio) and Matthew Meredith (Conn.) to
share the under-2210 prizes.

With a draw as Black against Ivanov in the last round,
three-time U.S. champion GM Nick de Firmian placed just out of the prizes at
3.5, largely due to an upset-third-round draw against expert Jonathan Richman
of New York. (See game, with Richman's notes.)

"I haven't been playing much," Nick said before the start of
the event. "I rented a car and drove up from the City. I'm splitting time
between Manhattan and the San Francisco area, giving private lessons." He can
be contacted by email at ndefirmian@hotmail.com.

GMs Nick DeFirmian and Alexander Ivanov, Photo Al Lawrence

The tournament was organized into four separate sections,
but everyone got to play in one spacious room, which makes it easy to keep an
eye on the pros. In the under-2010 section, Chen was trailed by four, all with
4.0, who shared second-fourth prizes: Andrew Liu (Mass.), Robert Campbell
(Mass.), Pedro Perdomo (N.Y.), and Michael Pascetta (Conn), who lost to Chen in
a last-round struggle. Brian Jordan (Conn.) took undisputed possession of the
under-1810 prize within the second section, while Robert Bagdasaryan (R.I.)
took second under-1810.

Parag Mujumdar (Mass.) won clear first in the under-1410
section with 4.5 points, followed by a four-way tie for second: George Eason
(Conn.), Joshua Chasen (N.Y.), Michael Cebrik (Conn.), and Alan Kuusisto
(Mass.).

The Bradley Sheraton should be cited as a winner as well.
"The staff here is great, with everyone pitching in," director Steve Immitt
said. "The doors to the tournament hall were a bit squeaky last year, so they
took them off completely, oiled them and replaced the springs." This year the
only groans came from the occasional surprised combatant.